Paul’s transition to maturity.
Paul said in 1 Corinthians 13 “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became an adult, I put away childish things”. He used this as an analogy of his transfiguration. That we transition into adulthood and spiritual perfection through a series of exchanges. Carnal things for spiritual things, earthly things for heavenly.
The writer of Hebrews put it like this, “the Holy Spirit indicating this, that the way into the Holiest of All was not yet made manifest while the first tabernacle was still standing. 9 It was symbolic for that present time”.
Symbolic, meaning a substitute, or a toy, demonstrating for us how eternal things work. When the substitute has taught it’s purpose, it’s mission is complete. It has been expired in the heavenlies. In this way the substitute was like a teaching with a toy, a playlike representative, but not the original that it mimicks.
Hebrews later states to “let us therefore go boldly to the throne room of Grace” of something human eyes have not witnessed. Showing that we have access to what that toy represented as touching the invisble. This is what God is.
Children play with toys, which are small copies of things adults do. Generally boys play cops and robbers and girls play house. The same is true of the faith.
The people of the old Covenant culture of the law were called “children” over two thousand times in the Bible. Even at the end of the 40 year wilderness wandering they were still called children when some of them were 80+ years old. Why? Because they could not “put away childish things” as having to do with the culture of the Law and Prophets, something that Christ fulfilled and shelved to save only for historical referencing for those of us in the New Covenant.
All the relics have no forward speaking relevance to the New Testament believers. As Hebrews 1 states “God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, 2 in these last days speaks to us by His Son”. Case closed.
Everything the law had is in God’s son, even as it says in Hebrews of the law. “I have come to do your will oh God. He takes away the first to establish the second”. The exchange is complete.
Peter explained the difference like this “Of this salvation the prophets have inquired and searched carefully, who prophesied of the grace that would come to you” showing to us that they knew they were going to be seperceded.
The whole 40 years of wandering would not have been so long if they learned the exchange rate of things on earth for things in Heavenly. We put away childish things, and have been given keys to the kingdom. The violent take it by force? We enter in valiantly. For us the kingdom of God has an open door.
Jesus said of the Jews in His day “But to what shall I liken this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to their companions”. Or to the Pharisees He said “you are not entering The Kingdom, nor are you allowing those who are trying to do so”. Ironically they thought they were in the kingdom, being the Jerusalem on earth, but didn’t realize that was just a silly play thing as well, and they were actor’s in the play. God’s things are not made with men’s hands. These are the toys.
Even as the Lord chuckled with David wanting to build a house for Him. The Lord told David, you want to build a house for Me? See all these things I have made with My hands. And, from all those that went before you, did I (The Lord) ever ask anyone to build a house for Me? The firmament in the heavens cannot contain Me for all these declare My handiwork, that I accomplished in a moment.
The Israelites travels teach us that our spiritual pilgrimage is a journey too, an invisible one. Which is why we are called sojourners in the faith, showing us that there is a progression and an end. As Paul acknowledged to Timothy ”
7 I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith:
8 Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness.”
This is why the first New Covenant believers were called the people of “The Way”. Like those from Abraham, they looked for the city whose builder and designer was God. He knew that no city on Earth qualified as a place for God to rest. God rested on the 7th day from His creating, to the place He was before He ever created as that of “The Kingdom before the foundations of the world”. This place is not created but the original all creation is patterned from, showing us what our toys are that we need to trade in. There is a one to one exchange rate for the toys.
Paul talks more about this exchange in Galatians saying “Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, does not differ at all from a slave, though he is master of all, 2 but is under guardians and tutors until the time appointed by the father. 3 Even so we, when we were children, we were in bondage under the elements of the world”. Speaking of the Old Covenant culture from Moses, in to the promised land (meaning the place of promises) through Zion and up to Jerusalem in the time of David. Paul then chided the Galatians saying “how is it you turn back to the week and beggarly things on the earth? Thereby discrediting them.
When David and his men went to take Jerusalem (2 Samuel 5) he was repelled by the lame and blind (symbolically those who see the invisble as future). But David said “Whoever climbs up, by way of the water shaft (being the gospel) and defeats the Jebusites (naysayers) the lame and the blind, who are hated by David’s soul, he shall be chief and captain.” Therefore they say, “The blind and the lame (faithless) shall not come into the house.” This is a parable of those who think that Heavenly Jerusalem needs to take on a form common to the carnal senses but there is a reason Paul called Heavenly Jerusalem his mother. She already exists in Her true form if he was born there.
As it was in David and in the time of Christ, it is again in our day. Believers are looking for something carnally tangible to fulfill scripture. Some are trying to set the corner Stone and start up the sacrifices, showing that they are like the lame and blind that David dispised. They are looking for another Jesus, when Paul specifically said “if anyone comes preaching of another Christ, let them be accursed”.
As Paul said of the damned in his day “22 Professing to be wise, they became fools, 23 and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man”. And furthermore anticipate God to appear as a man in a silly man-made city on Earth so that they can shake His hand, showing they are lame and blind, which are not only hated by David, but God Himself. These refuse to progress in the faith and allege themselves with the Pharases of a bygone age.
The progression that was given in the Old Covenant and Paul and even Jacobs ladder is for us to be god-like, not the other way around. There is no glory in the Son of God becoming man again.
The things the Israelites handled of the preisthood of putting up and taking down the tabernacle, the holies and the Holy of Holies. The installation of the Ark, the placement of the show bread and the barriers between the Most Holy, the Holies for those in service, the tabernacle for the congregation that protected them from without. All it’s sacrifices and services were only toys and replicas of invisble eternal things with God in the Spirit as Moses was instructed on Sinai “make all things just like the things you saw on the Mount” showing that there was an original, mature, fully functional, eternal reality they were mimicking on earth of things that symbolized real ones.
The things they had were toys and copies of the originals. That as they played out these parts on Sabbath and Feast days of things laid out in a liniar fashion on a timeframe for our understanding and growth in a progression, to realize the eternal realities in the Heavens to which we are called to “Today” of things that are all simultaneously true at the same time. These things don’t have to be assembled, put up or waited for a specific time to be true because they already are eternally assembled and opporational, fully functionable and implimentable to the mature in the faith.
This is why Paul said “when I became an adult, I put away childish ( old Covenant) things. And “when that which is perfect has come, that which is in part is done away with”. And “cast off the bond woman, being the Jerusalem on earth as the replica of the Heavenly but only in contrasts.
It is with Jerusalem on Earth that is dealt with specifics. Meaning at a specific place, Jerusalem for a specific time, the feast, for a specific people called the Israelites, with a specific language. However, in the New Covenant the only specific is, in Christ. The specific place is wherever two or more are gathered in his name. Into what kind of people? The gentiles. For even the Jews have no preference over another culture even as Paul had said where there is no longer Bond nor slave nor male nor female nor Jew nor Greek for God is all in all. If this is the fulfillment that God spoke and Abraham saying in you shall all Nations be blessed. the specifics have been respess ified and traded in four Heavenly things.
That which is perfect, is perfect in understanding. Even as job said, those who are perfect are with you. Speaking of God as being “The City whose Builder and Maker is God”. Whose location, design and composition are Spirit and truth, the original all others are patterned after. These all have their fulfillment in Christ with Paul’s words saying, all things have passed away all things are made new in Christ.and all things are of God who has reconciled us to himself in this way.
Humans external features experience compositions familiar to their senses, but the Elect have another set of senses as touching the invisble. Paul’s prayer was for the eyes of our understanding to be enlightened as being our new features. that we would know the hope of our calling and what his great power is towards us that he displayed in Christ when he raised him from the dead. The same power resident in us as we understand it inappropriate it elevates us to the very right hand of the father.
Paul went into his discourse of the sons verses slaves. That a slave and a child have the same instructors, being the law and the prophets, but the slaves being harnessed to their outer senses, being in bondage to the elements of the world, never transitioned from them. As Paul said “you have returned to the weak and beggarly elements, to which you desire again to be in bondage? 10 You observe days and months and seasons and years. 11 I am afraid for you, lest I have labored for you in vain.”
So let us be more diligent to learn from their mistakes and heed the warnings lest we be judged like they were “till not one stone shall be left upon another.
Therefore we must give [a]the more earnest heed to the things we have heard, lest we drift away. 2 For if the word spoken through angels proved steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just reward, 3 how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord.
This Salvation however long the journey may be, the objective remains the same. Our crossover/Passover/baptism to the New life “in Christ”.
The Kingdom of God is at hand.